Richard Clarke - Against All Enemies: Inside Americas War on Terror

A highly readable, often exciting, and authoritative account of Americas most dangerous immediate problem, how to deal with terrorism and al Qaeda. It is also the story of one mans effort to make the complex bureaucracy of the federal government respond to undefined but devastating threats as well as to unforeseen emergencies. It is an important book.

The New York Review of Books

Dick Clarke has struck a chord because his passionate efforts reflected those great American virtues of ingenuity and brashness. Even if he was a bit of a cowboy, loading up his .357 sidearm to return to the West Wing the night after 9/11, at least he was not dozing through High Noon.

Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

[Richard Clarke] served his nation very, very wellThe book is the book, and you can read it and make your own judgment as to whether its accurate.

Colin Powell

Few books command days of banner headlines on publication. But then few authors have been quite so intimately involved with current events as Richard Clarke, until last year one of President Bushs most important advisers on counterterrorism[An] entertaining book, with tense, thrillerish accounts of how events unfolded in the White House Situation Room on September 11, plenty of hardbitten dialogue, and easily digested history to keep the pages turningThe picture he paints of Bushs White House is grimly compelling.

Birmingham Post

Clearly, the President preferred flattering myths to hard facts about 9/11. Now, with the publication of Richard Clarkes memoir, Against All Enemies, we know why.

Mr. Clarke is a nonpartisan professional who has devoted his life to national security, serving four Presidents of both parties during a distinguished public career that spanned 30 yearsHis book confirms in detail what some of us have long suspected: During the first nine months of 2001, the Bush administration largely ignored loud alarms about al Qaeda sounded by Mr. Clarke, by CIA director George Tenet and by other former Clinton administration officials.

The New York Observer

Mr. Clarkes book is a rare literary phenomenon, a thriller, contemporary history and kiss-and-tell all rolled into one, before being bound with dynamite and fired crashing through the widows of the Oval Office.

The Times (London)

Washington will be abuzz for some time over Clarkes recollections.

The Washington Post Book World

Fascinating and highly detailedgrippingThe book is far more a road map of an ongoing war than a political potboiler. And its unlikely weve heard the last from Clarke, which should keep top administration officials in a state of high anxiety.

BusinessWeek

Richard Clarkes revealing book Against All Enemies makes clear that he is perhaps the single most improbable hero American liberals have ever reveredHe was a strong believer in the use of U.S. military powerSome of his views might ordinarily be greeted with a dollop of skepticism were it not for the fact that Clarke was right, clearly and spectacularly so, about one big thing, the biggest of all: al Qaeda and the threat its terrorism has posed to the United States.

Los Angeles Times

Serious, thoughtful, passionate, detailed and alarming.

The Winston-Salem Journal

The best part of Richard Clarkes book, Against All Enemies, is that it reads like an MRI of how the federal government works in this country. It reveals a nasty, treacherous, back-stabbing arena of high-stakes politics, where money, patronage, personal grudges and wars where our kids are killed are concocted. Its down, dirty and terrifying.

New York Daily News

Clarke was once a far-sighted, hard-nosed, aggressive counterterrorism official, just the kind of guy you want fighting Osama bin Laden.

National Review

A scathing indictment of Bush and his administrations failure to deal with the terror threats prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The Toronto Star

Every footprint Clarke has left leads back to his obsession with terrorismnot moneyBut heres the point: Clarke was right.

The Nation

His version of events strongly supports other eyewitness accounts.

The New Yorker

Richard Clarke has been consistently right on the facts, and the White House and its apologists consistently wrong. Which is why the White House is waging such a ferocious and unconscionable campaign of character assassination against Mr. Clarke.

Bob Herbert, The New York Times

[Richard Clarke] had been worrying about al Qaeda for a decade, and yet even as he saw terror flames growing on the horizon, the Bush people pushed him asideClarke, warts and all, seems to be thinking about the truthwhich means he is thinking about the national interest, as well as the long haul of history.

James P. Pinkerton, New York Newsday

I found Clarke to be one of the few heroes in the Bush White House. He was a career bureaucrat who served under four presidents and one of the first officials to recognize the seriousness of the threat posed by al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalists.

Gerald Posner, New York Newsday

Clarkerepresents Bushs worst nightmare: an undeniable insider with no obvious history of partisanship who has challenged his performance on the one issue that he cannot afford to surrender.

New York Newsday

Clarkes accusations go to the core of Bushs main reelection message: that he is the wartime commander-in-chief doing everything he can to keep America safe from terrorists.

Thomas DeFrank, New York Daily News

The body of evidence Clarke marshals to make his case is deep and compelling. That probably is why the White House already has ginned up its efforts to discredit both Clarke and his thesis. Whom to believe? There are many good reasons to believe Clarke.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

To colleagues in four administrations, Mr. Clarke was the go-to guy, the senior official who knew the often-arcane workings of budgets and could make the creaky bureaucracy move. Obssessed with averting terrorist attacks on his watch, he was quick to identify threatsand bully people into addressing them.

Richard W. Stevenson, The New York Times

To those inclined to accept the smears of Clarke and his book by right-wing pundits and Republican activists, bear in mind the abundant external evidence that substantiates Clarkes insider testimony.

San Francisco Chronicle

This is an angry yet authoritative polemic that demands to be read by anyone interested in the exercise of American power and the threat of Islamic terrorism.

The Sunday Times (London)

This book is not just another hysterical anti-Bush polemic but a forensic glimpse into the entrails of government written by a registered full-blooded Republican and a White House veteran. If the American people believe him, it could cost Bush the electionwhich is why the White House has become the fiercest enemy of Against All Enemies.

The Scotsman (Edinburgh)

The book itself is far more valuable than the hype surrounding it.

Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times (London)

FREE PRESS
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Copyright 2004 by RAC Enterprises, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Free Press trade paperback edition 2004

FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

DESIGNED BY LISA CHOVNICK

LC Number 2004273844

eISBN-13: 978-0-7432-6640-6
eISBN-10: 0-7432-6640-4

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